The Ear of an Angel

Turns out that “Three Wishes,” the splendid jazz cornucopia featuring Pannonica de Koenigswarter’s photographs and musicians’ responses to her questionnaire, is currently available for order, but won’t be in bookstores until Oct. 1. That gives us some more time to listen to the music that the book celebrates and illuminates. Miles Davis and John Coltrane are two of the volume’s most striking presences, and here they are in 1959, in a classic television performance of “So What,” with Davis soloing, first and last, with suave, understated grace, and Coltrane, in-between, unleashing fervent harmonic whirlwinds.

Sign up for the New Yorker Recommends newsletter and get expert recommendations every week from the worlds of film, literature, and music.

The ace pilot leading Virgin Galactic’s billion-dollar quest to make commercial space travel a reality.

Asian-Americans, a largely made-up group united by historical marginalization, are desperate for a movie like this one to be perfect, because the opportunity to make another might not arrive for another quarter century.